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Our Strategic Vision

Our trustees make their grant decisions based on our strategic vision.

Our strategic vision IS the foundation for our work on behalf of our four funding regions — Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough and the Chatham Islands — now and in the future.

It builds on our past successes and takes all we have learnt over the past 29 years as one of New Zealand’s largest philanthropic organisations and integrates new and emerging best practice in grant making, here and internationally.

Our Aim

Our aim is to create positive change in our communities by supporting and promoting innovation and learning amongst our stakeholders. We will do this by developing programmes to assist the organisations we work with to develop their capacity in areas which will lead them towards sustainability and independence.

We will continue our work to prudently preserve, grow and manage our investment base on behalf of our four funding regions for our communities now and in the future. We will never lose sight of where the money comes from and its intended purpose. We continue to be committed to remaining fair, open, impartial and transparent as an organisation.

Through our endeavours we aspire to make our communities stronger, more connected, happier and more prosperous. This is how we will make a difference.

Achieving Our Vision

To achieve our vision we will:

Respect the partnership relationship enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi

Preserve and grow the capital of the Trust

Maintain and continually refresh knowledge and understanding of community needs

Capture and use relevant information to inform decision-making

Invest wisely in our communities and build community capability

Work with others to make the money go further and increase community impact

Align all policies, systems, processes and behaviours with our beliefs and guiding principle

Our Beliefs and Guiding Principles

Guardianship

We will develop long-term investment strategies aimed at preserving the real value of our assets for our community's benefit – now and in the future. By achieving this goal we will provide certainty and stability for our stakeholders around our annual grants programme.

Community Benefit

We will be a strategic grant maker, maintaining and continually refreshing our knowledge and understanding of community needs through consultation, assessment and research. By doing this we can provide more tangible evidence we are delivering a wide range of community benefits across our funding regions.

Common Purpose

We will monitor, review and improve our governance and management practices, using best practice principles to guide our planning and decision making. Our aim is to unite and involve our stakeholders with our long-term direction by communicating what we do, how we help the community and most importantly consulting with our stakeholders.

The Past and the Future

We will never lose sight of where our money came from and its intended purpose. Community is at our heart and our primary driver will always be to ensure through evidence our funding reaches people in our communities with the greatest need.

Build Bridges

We will work and develop strategic partnerships with other funders and community support organisations who share our vision for positive outcomes for our communities. By doing this we can ensure we are being collaborative and innovative within our grants framework to enable effective philanthropy.

Make Things Happen

We will strive to ensure our funding is reaching people in our communities with the greatest need by using evidence based grant-making to deliver the biggest impact. We will evaluate our grants programme to ensure they are meeting the needs of the community.

Fairness and Transparency

We will continue to be fair, open, impartial and transparent so the decisions we make and the impact they may have are clearly understood by the community and expectations around our grants framework are communicated.

Supporting Independence

We will be innovative and work towards the development of support services around education, building capability, mentoring programmes and facilitation to complement our grants framework with the aim of supporting the future independence of our stakeholders.

Be Ready

We will continue to employ investment strategies to preserve and grow our capital base for future generations and maximize the funding available for granting, with flexibility built in to respond to new opportunities or times of greater community need.